Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Dual groove records (and other vinyl tricks)

This is topic Dual groove records (and other vinyl tricks) in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-06-2014, 04:54 PM:

Lazaretto Ultra LP

Cool stuff.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 05-06-2014, 05:18 PM:

There are more like this.

What made the Monty Python record so tricky was that there was no indication on the disc jacket that there were two different tracks on one side. I had the disc and noticed that the side seemed especially short. I was sure surprised later to hear an entirely different program!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-06-2014, 07:27 PM:

In a similar-yet-different vein, there was a three-sided LP by Joe Jackson called "Big World" which contained two LP disks, one of which had a blank side. He wasn't exactly a big seller at that time so I was surprised that his label would go to the expense of doing that.

Another vinyl trick I remember is laser-imprinted graphics on LPs. Two I remember with the treatment included Styx's "Paradise Theatre" and "Waiata" by Split Enz. The process would imprint color shifting graphics on one side of the record, but it didn't affect the sound (or it wasn't supposed to -- there were some copies that were noisy).

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 05-06-2014, 08:00 PM:

This isn't exactly 'new' technology.
When I was a kid I remember my folks gave me a book that had 4 short stories
in it and came with a "magic record". You would follow along with the pictures
in the book as you listened to someone reading the story (with sound efx & music).
As there were 4 stories in the book, each side of the record was 'dual grooved'.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-06-2014, 08:00 PM:

I have the Monty Python Matching Tie And Handkerchief record! It's Groovy! [Smile]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-06-2014, 10:35 PM:

Phonograph discs playing from the inside out has been done before, too. Although consumer records were only ever recorded that way as a novelty, Vitaphone discs always played from the inside out. I've never heard a definitive explanation as to why, though the best guess seems to be that the sync mark (the point on the lead-in groove where you put the stylus with the film leader's start frame in the gate before interlocking the projector and turntable) was easier to see that way.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-07-2014, 11:02 AM:

I was told that the reason that vitaphone and radio transcription disks played from the centre out was that the linear speed at the centre of the disk is slower and as such had a poorer frequency response compared to the outer edge and since they used a new stylus each disk that when new had a good response and as the disk played wore down and was poorer so one corrected the other

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-07-2014, 01:26 PM:

Thanks. According to Wikipedia, the reason was to improve tracking accuracy (i.e. reduce the risk of the needle jumping, I guess) on the inner grooves rather than audio quality. The audio quality reason only makes sense if the groove pitch was cut the same throughout the disc. Certainly on a consumer record (even '20s and '30s shellac ones) this wasn't the same: the cutting lathe gradually increased the pitch the nearer to the center you got, to maintain an even frequency response throughout the running time of the side. I know that Vitaphone tried to reduce surface noise by using a softer shellac/filler compound than was typically used for consumer records, hence the requirement for a new steel needle for each playing, and the reason why Vitaphone discs had check boxes on the label and each side was only supposed to be played a couple of dozen times before the record was discarded. Maybe the softer substrate made it impossible to vary the groove pitch on a Vitaphone mastering for some reason.

Incidentally, when sound on disc was in its death throes in the early '30s (after it had been abandoned for production but distributors were still pressing discs because of contractual obligations to theaters that had installed equipment), several distributors tried to save money by pressing standard 12" discs on the same substrate used for consumer ones - they were pressed by the same plants. They still played from the inside out and ran at 33.3 RPM, though. I've got one record consisting of two reels of The Private Life of Henry VIII in my collection and, as you'd expect, the audio quality on it is horrid - let's just say it has a noise-to-signal ratio! I suspect that one of the reasons they were pressing cheap and nasty records towards the end was as a subtle way to persuade the remaining sound-on-disc theaters to buy optical heads.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 05-07-2014, 09:35 PM:

I used to service an analog record cutting studio. The chip or thread that came from the cutter is very combustible. Since the thread collects in the center of the disc, starting there keept the chip away from the cutter. To reduce the noise from the groove this studio used a heated cutter so the chance for a fire was very real. When cutting from the outside in, there was a vacuum collector to pick up the chip.

Those were the days!

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-07-2014, 11:25 PM:

Groovy! [Big Grin]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-07-2014, 11:52 PM:

quote: Kenneth Wuepper
The chip or thread that came from the cutter is very combustible.

Nitrocellulose lacquer - the same stuff as nitrate film, basically, and it's still what's used to cut the master.

Coincidentally, one of the last remaining manufacturers of lacquer master blanks, if not the last, in the US is located about 20 miles up the road from me, in Banning, CA.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-08-2014, 12:52 AM:

MAD Magazine issued a 7inch sheet vinyl record, pressed by Evatone, that had four sets of grooves to play different content from the one track.

In the 1950's Emory Cook, of Cook Recordings produced an interesting way to play binaural (stereo) records: A dual tone arm setup that each arm played its assigned groove that was pressed on the vinyl.

The vinyl had two sets of grooves per each tonearm.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-08-2014, 07:51 AM:

Back to Vitaphone: why were the disks single-sided? Was it just to reduce confusion (so that the operator would not accidentally re-play the sound for an earlier reel without flipping the disk?

As for inside-out grooves being unpopular on consumer records: this might be partially because many consumer turntables have an auto-stop mechanism that will stop the turntable and raise the stylus at the end of the disk. Since the auto-stop function only works when the stylus is on the innermost grooves of the record, it would not function properly on an inside-out disk and there is a good chance that the stylus could just fly off the end of the record if the anti-skate adjustment were not set properly.

The Eva-Tone flexible disks are just awful. They only really work right when taped to a standard record and the quality degrades significantly with each play. Most have improperly centered holes, too.

Do they still make large-hole 45RPM 7" disks of popular songs for jukeboxes? That business was alive and well for the entire decade of the '90s, at least. Or are modern jukeboxes just glorified Ipods?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-08-2014, 10:16 AM:

Single-sided Vitaphone discs could have been to avoid confusion, though I'm wondering if there was print-through / audio quality issue instead or as well.

The substrate of 78s for sale to consumers was a proprietary cocktail consisting of shellac, a resin and a filler. Each pressing plant used its own cocktail. The harder the compound used, the more durable they were (i.e. the more playings they would withstand). The softer the compound, the less surface noise there was (hence a better s/n ratio), and, although this benefit was very marginal, the disc was slightly more difficult to break accidentally. However, a softer compound meant the record wore out more quickly, too - even under ideal playing conditions, pre-microgroove records had an expected lifetime of only a few dozen playings before you started to hear them deteriorate. An acoustic phonograph pickup had a tracking weight measured in pounds, and a pre-microgroove electric one in ounces. Nowadays, 5 grams is considered heavy!

Different manufacturers went for different compromises on the durability vs. audio quality trade-off. That's why you'll hear a lot less surface noise on a 1930s Columbia than you will on an HMV assuming that both are in a similar state of wear, but it's also why good Columbias are harder to find when sifting through the record section in the thrift store.

Vitaphone took an extreme approach to this problem, using a very soft compound to maximise sound quality. They figured that for a recording to be played back to 2,000 people in a prestige theater, the extra cost of replacing a record every 24 playings was worth it. That having been said, I don't know if pressing single-sided records was because of print-through issues in pressing that compound double-sided, or, as you say, to avoid confusion resulting in the wrong side being played.

I do know that as sound-on-disc withered on the vine, economies were made: first the records went double-sided, then 12-inch. At some point the mixture became tougher, too, so that the record was supposed to last the lifetime of the reel of print it came with, unless it was accidentally broken. Towards the end, one or two distributors (I forget which ones) experimented with early vinyl, too, to avoid the breakage risk.

quote: Scott Norwood
As for inside-out grooves being unpopular on consumer records: this might be partially because many consumer turntables have an auto-stop mechanism...

Good point. I once had a Goldring Lenco GL78, which was the only hifi turntable (as distinct from cheap record player with integrated amp and speakers) I ever came across that had an auto-arm lift mechanism. It couldn't cope with 8" and 7" 78s with the tiny labels - the arm would lift with about 20 seconds of playing time still to go.

quote: Scott Norwood
Do they still make large-hole 45RPM 7" disks of popular songs for jukeboxes? That business was alive and well for the entire decade of the '90s, at least. Or are modern jukeboxes just glorified Ipods?

The only newly pressed records I ever buy are LPs (and even then very rarely, because used ones that can be restored to near-new condition merely by washing in a distilled water and IPA solution of the sort of music I like can still be had for next to nothing), so I don't know. Originally, the large hole was an RCA patent, and the small hole (same size as in LPs) Columbia. RCA originally produced turntables (like this one), that would play a box set of 45s, in which an entire symphony or jazz concert was split into four-minute chunks. I've got a few of these sets, and subjectively to me, the audio quality of them is far better than that of the really early Columbia LPs.

Record-playing jukeboxes, however, seem to be acquiring a sort of retro chic. Someone I knew back in York ran a cafe that had a 1930s vintage jukebox that played 10" 78s. It had sat inactive for many years (she regarded it as a piece of curiosity furniture, basically) before she asked me if it could be coaxed back to life. I was astonished to find that the machine-specific spares I needed to do this - some styli, some bulbs and two tubes, basically - were easily available on Ebay. Properly restored jukeboxes from this era go for four figures, and records to play on them in good condition seem to be creeping up in price, too. The only problem with my friend's machine was that the coin acceptor took farthings (a type of British coin that ceased to be legal tender in 1961, and which was worth a quarter of a pre-decimalisation penny, or one 960th of a pound!), and so she had to put it on free play.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-09-2014, 03:06 PM:

C'mon guys almost all records have two grooves; one on each side. These are 3 or 4 groove records!!!

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-09-2014, 07:22 PM:

Columbia used the laminated "Sensitone Process" where the core was a different, yet strong substance, and the outer layer was shellac - the best of two worlds of quiet surface and durable construction.

Victor just played it simple: All shellac, where they wanted that quiet surface using a good needle....and making digital dupes from a clean shellac surface has its rewards.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-10-2014, 09:53 PM:

All but the hologram thing have all been done before. I once worked on an album and wanted to know if I could have all 6 songs all start in different lead-in grooves with each song playing as a single cut across the whole length of the record. You wouldn't know which song you would hit when you dropped the needle. The mastering engineer told me it would work in theory, but only a crazy person would do that. No argument there. In my defense, it was the time of psychadelia and it seemed quite appropriate to me.

There have been a number of experimental inner-to-outer groove pressings of audiophile "specialty" LPs over the years, the advantage being that for genres like symphonic music where the finale is almost always the loudest modulation, having that occur at the outer edge instead of the center reduces the dreaded inner groove distortion that builds toward the center, plus of course no matter the groove pitch, the speed is slower and distance/time is shorter at the center which negatively affects frequency response. Actually it would have been much better if the tradition had been that all LPs be pressed inner to outer.

Thing I don't understand is with all the wild things these guys were trying to do to make their record unique, why did they stick with black vinyl? They could have done transparant color vinyl or even do an imbedded picture -- those kinds of LPs, while they have been done before, are still REALLY impressive. I once saw a transparant, multi-color LP where the colors flowed into each other -- awesome to look at and look through! Sticking with black is just boring.

Posted by Allan Young (Member # 6332) on 05-11-2014, 07:52 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
I once worked on an album and wanted to know if I could have all 6 songs all start in different lead-in grooves with each song playing as a single cut across the whole length of the record. You wouldn't know which song you would hit when you dropped the needle.

In a radio documentary on the making of the Monty Python albums, Terry Jones mentioned that they got the idea for the double groove from a horse racing record from the 1930s. The outcome of the race would depend on which groove the needle hit.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-11-2014, 10:09 AM:

Black: While boring, it allows certain chemicals to be added that help with noise and wear.

In to out: Broadcast transcriptions were sometimes cut that way for that very reason. (Pre tape era.)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-11-2014, 10:19 AM:

I have a feeling that the inner groove distortion problem - with microgroove records at least - is essentially a function of how skillfully the lacquer is cut and how much running time you're trying to get on a side. I'm also wondering if, going back to the mid-30s and earlier, when the master was wax rather than nitrocellulose lacquer (i.e. softer), less control over varying the groove pitch was possible, making it an even bigger problem.

The worst records in my collection for inner groove distortion are classical ones from the very end of the LP era (mid to late '80s) when the same title was being published on LP and CD, and to save the production costs of a double album they tried to cram sometimes up to 40 minutes onto a side. The all time record (excuse the pun!) I have is in a box set of Elgar I bought at Amoeba Records in Hollywood last year. It was originally published in 1988 as a budget-price repackaging of EMI's recordings from the '60s and '70s on three LPs or CDs. I'm guessing that they sold very few of the LP version, because the one I got was new, old stock, still in its shrink wrap.

Some overture (can't remember which), plus the first three movements of the violin concerto are all on one side - 42 minutes in total! The fact that it's a DMM pressing helps things a little bit (I'm not sure it would physically have been possible to gut a groove pitch that tiny on a conventional lacquer), but the fact that the slow (quiet) movement of the concerto is at the end of the side means that even with the amp cranked up to about three o'clock, you're basically hearing a noise to signal ratio.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-11-2014, 12:13 PM:

How about a CD which has record grooves cut into the label side of the disc?
Then you could take it out of the CD player and listen to it on your turntable.

You wouldn't be able to put the whole album on a disc the size of a CD but it could be a neat "bonus track."

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-12-2014, 10:43 AM:

If you did that on the data side as well as the label side, it would be interesting to see if the laser could still read the optical data pits underneath the groove.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 05-12-2014, 11:40 AM:

I just picked up RPM Turntable Football a few weeks ago on Record Store Day. It's pretty cool. Each side has several groves, so that a random play is called each time you put the needle down.

I demo it in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqG0vlS5dI

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-12-2014, 04:23 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
If you did that on the data side as well as the label side, it would be interesting to see if the laser could still read the optical data pits underneath the groove.

If the music/data didn't take up the whole side of the disc, it would certainly be possible to do that.

You would just have to make sure the runout groove stopped the stylus from traveling into the data area. I don't think that would be a problem, given the current state of technology.